PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University will present eight honorary degrees
at its 234th Commencement Monday, May 27, 2002. The degrees will be
conferred during the University Convocation, which begins at approximately 11:30
a.m. on The College Green.

The recipients are businessmen and philanthropists John Birkelund and Raymond
G. Chambers, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the New York Public
Library’s Paul LeClerc, author-illustrator Emily Arnold McCully, singer
Jessye Norman, former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, and
architect William Warner.

None of the recipients is a Commencement speaker. At Brown, that honor goes
to two members of the graduating class. However, four honorary degree recipients
will speak during Commencement Weekend, and their addresses will be open to the
public:

LeClerc will present a Commencement Forum titled “Voltaire’s
Monkey Business: The Art of Illustrating a Classic” at 2:15 p.m. Saturday,
May 25, in Starr Auditorium of MacMillan Hall.

Ginsburg will deliver the Baccalaureate address at approximately 1:30 p.m.
Sunday, May 26. For space reasons, only graduating seniors will be able to
attend the service, which will be held in the Meeting House of the First Baptist
Church in America. However, the service will be videocast to The College Green
for parents and others to view.

Editors: For detailed biographical information and photographs of
the candidates, please contact the News Service at (401) 863-2476.

John Birkelund, Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), is an international investment banker and philanthropist who has served Brown steadfastly for 18 years, first as a trustee, then as a fellow of the Corporation. He currently chairs the Board of Overseers of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies at Brown. (See text of citation.)

In 1990 Birkelund was asked by then-President George Bush to organize and
lead the Polish-American Enterprise Fund, an aid program designed to stimulate
the newly privatized Polish economy through loans and investments in small- and
medium-sized enterprises.

Birkelund began his business career in 1956 as an associate of Booz, Allen
and Hamilton Inc., followed by 10 years as vice president and investment manager
of Amsterdam Overseas Corporation, a private, New York-based merchant bank. In
1967 he became a founding shareholder and chief executive officer of New Court
Securities, a venture capital and investment bank. In 1981, Birkelund joined
Dillon Read and Co. Inc. as president and chief operating officer, becoming
co-chief executive officer in 1986. He was named chair and chief executive in
1988. Birkelund assumed his current position as a senior adviser to UBS Warburg
LLC when the firm merged with Swiss Bank Warburg in 1997.

Businessman and philanthropist Raymond G. Chambers, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.), chairs the New Jersey-based Amelior Foundation and is considered a leading figure in the renaissance of his native city, Newark. Through a broad philanthropic network, he has provided significant support for educational and economic-development initiatives there. (See text of citation.)

In 1981, Chambers and William Simon, the late U.S. treasury secretary,
founded the investment firm Wesray Capitol. Chambers retired as its chair in
1990 to focus on philanthropy.

The Amelior Foundation, established by Chambers in 1987, provides
educational, job-training, and employment opportunities for Newark residents.
Amelior’s READY program provides college scholarships for 1,100 Newark
youth. In addition, his MCJ Foundation has made grants to the Newark Boys and
Girls Clubs, as well as hospitals, libraries, schools and other organizations.
In 1988 Chambers championed the development of the New Jersey Performing Arts
Center, of which he is founding chair.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Doctor of Laws (LL.D.),isa
pioneering legal crusader for women’s rights and equality. She was sworn
in as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court Aug. 10, 1993. (See text of citation.)

Before her appointment to the Supreme Court, she served from 1980 to 1993 on
the bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
From 1972 to 1980, she was a professor at Columbia University School of Law;
from 1963 to 1972, she served on the law faculty of Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey. She has taught in a number of other institutions as
well.

Ginsburg was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of
the American Civil Liberties Union in 1971. Throughout the 1970s she litigated a
series of cases solidifying a constitutional principle against gender-based
discrimination, presenting oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in
several of these cases.

Since December of 1993, Paul LeClerc, Doctor of Humane Letters
(L.H.D.), has been president and chief executive officer of the New York
Public Library, overseeing its collection of 55 million items, its 85
neighborhood branches, and its four research libraries. (See text of citation.)

Before becoming president of the library, LeClerc was president of Hunter
College. A scholar of Voltaire, he previously chaired Union College’s
department of modern languages and its humanities division, was university dean
for academic affairs and acting vice chancellor for academic affairs at the City
University of New York, and was provost and vice president for academic affairs
at CUNY’s Baruch College.

LeClerc, who serves on many boards, was appointed by President Clinton to the
President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. LeClerc was recently
elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a director of
the American Academy of Rome.

A 1961 Brown graduate, Emily Arnold McCully, Doctor of Letters
(Litt.D.), is the award-winning illustrator of more than 100
children’s books and the acclaimed author-illustrator of more than 30
books. Known for their humor, honesty and stalwart belief in human possibility,
her books are characterized by their artistry and intuitive appeal to young
audiences. (See text of citation.)

Early in her career, Arnold McCully illustrated Journey from Peppermint
Street by Meindert DeJong, which won the 1969 National Book Award –
the first time the honor was given to a children’s book. Her book
Picnic, a picture story about a family of mice on an outing, received a
Christopher Award in 1985.

The author’s most beloved character is Mirette, of Arnold
McCully’s award-winning 1992 picture book, Mirette on the High
Wire. Arnold McCully’s luminous watercolors of 19th-century
Paris earned Mirette the Caldecott Medal, among the highest honors given
for book illustration.

Jessye Norman, Doctor of Music (D.Mus.),has been described as
“one of those once-in-a-generation singers who is not simply following in
the footsteps of others, but is staking out her own niche in the history of
singing.” The power and luster of her voice are acclaimed worldwide, as
are her thoughtful music-making, innovative programming of the classics, and
advocacy of contemporary music. (See text of citation.)

In the 19 years since her Metropolitan Opera debut, Norman has performed
around the world. Her operatic repertoire includes the works of Berlioz,
Meyerbeer, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Schoenberg, Janacek, Bartok, Rameau, Wagner and
Richard Strauss.

Norman, who has won numerous awards for her artistry, is a recipient of the
Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal for humanitarian and civic contributions. She
is a national spokesperson for the Lupus Foundation and the Partnership for the
Homeless, and a board member of many other organizations.

As the United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) from 1991
through 2000, Sadako Ogata, Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.), carried
out her core mandate to protect the basic human rights of the vulnerable. Her
efforts led to a doubling of the UNHCR’s budget and staff; the agency now
operates in 120 countries with a staff of more than 5,000 workers. (See text of citation.)

She was recently appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to a
fact-finding team dispatched to Israel to investigate the battle in the West
Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

Ogata previously was dean of the faculty of foreign studies at Sophia
University, Tokyo, and a professor and director of Sophia’s Institute of
International Relations. Currently Ogata is the Japanese prime minister’s
special representative for Afghanistan assistance, co-chair of the international
Commission on Human Security, and a scholar-in-residence at the Ford Foundation
in New York.

Architect William D. Warner, Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.), is
responsible for the design that reinvented Providence’s downtown
waterfront. (See text of citation.)

A Warner-directed 1984 study formed the basis for the waterfront renaissance,
including the 1987 project that relocated the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket
rivers to create a new downtown confluence with the Providence River. The
architect’s Waterplace Park forms the geographic center of the
city’s renaissance. Completed in 1996, the rivers project earned Warner
Architects and Planners a 1997 National Endowment for the Arts Presidential
Federal Design Achievement Award.

Since its founding in 1959, Warner’s firm has completed more than 300
commissions. In Rhode Island, these include the Fleet Skating Center, Rhode
Island College’s performing arts center, the University of Rhode
Island’s coastal institute, and the restoration of the Westerly railroad
station. This spring Warner was commissioned to develop plans to upgrade
Providence’s India Point Park in conjunction with the relocation of Route
195.